The latest version of the venerable (and oh-so-holey) PDF viewing routine, Acrobat Reader DC 15.023.20053, released this week, looks for information about your Google Chrome surfing habits. Without your knowledge or consent, the security patch installs a Chrome browser extension that"s spyware, pure and simple.
The situation"s a little more complex, but for most people using Adobe Acrobat Reader, Chrome spyware comes along for the ride.
If you haven"t looked at the Adobe Acrobat Reader lately -- I haven"t used it in years, due to security concerns -- this latest privacy twist warrants your attention. Unfortunately, there are three distinct versions of Acrobat Reader making the rounds, and this spyware "feature" affects only one of them.
In April 2015, Adobe put Acrobat Reader in the cloud, creating Acrobat DC. Those who haven"t gone to the cloud are still running Reader XI, which will lose support in October 2017. Acrobat DC is split into two branches, the "continuous release track" -- the one affected by the spyware this month -- and the "classic release track," which freezes the feature set at 2015 levels.
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